sad in sound, which amused the ear and served the purposes of watchwords. The people complained loudly of taxes, of being compelled to use the Dutch language, of an unequal partition of places; whereas, in point of fact, they were simply in a very bad humor at the treatment of their newspapers, which had naturally enough identified their own cause with that of the national liberty and independence. Thus the Belgian revolution is a newspaper revolution, as was that of Paris.

It never, however, could have come to anything, had it not been for the extreme folly and mismanagement of the government, who actually enticed and tantalized the Belgians on to revolt.

The beginning was a mob or riot after the play the house of Van Maanen, the prime minister, was burnt and pulled down; and the house of the prime minister's devil, Lebry Bagnano, the editor of the National, and a printer. The respectable citizens at length succeeded in quelling the violence of the mob, and with arms in their hands-those they had used against the rioters-they began to treat with the government respecting the grievances alleged to have laid the foundation of the popular commotion. The king listened with apparent attention, temporised, and shuffled. He exhibited both his fear and his obstinacy. The Prince of Orange arrived in Bruxelles, avowedly to inquire into the complaints of the people, and to assist in remedying them. He grew alarmed, and, under pretext of bearing a message to his father, decamp ed. The people were again left to themselves; with arms in their hands, and a mob ready to rise into violence, the very first moment of encouragement. The municipal authorities perceiving the royal government too weak to protect them, deserted their posts, and the citizens were driven to erect temporary governments, and to other revo

lutionary acts, for the sole purpose of maintaining order, and carrying on the business of the country. At the first unequivocal signal of an honest intention to meet the complaints of the people, their arms would have been laid down. No such sign was given all was palaver. Though tired to death of military employment, the citizens would have been too glad to resign their weapons on the slightest pretext: they could not do it in very shame. The king would not afford them an excuse. All his talk was of the fundamental law and the States-General: the people well knew they had nothing to look to but the monarch's will. If the design had been to tire out the bourgeois, who were neglecting their business, losing their time, and occupied in disagreeable duties, there might have been some wisdom in the plan. But the king would neither disband these rebels by promptness, nor weary them out by delay: he neither used clemency nor severity, but shilly-shallied between the two, till he had absolutely driven even the best-intentioned into rebellion. He then, when it was too late, and while he was still pretending to defer the question to the States assembled, secretly marched an army to the siege of Bruxelles. While the States were deliberating upon the demands of the complainants, the army of Prince Frederick was cutting them in pieces in the streets of the capital.

The success of the citizens of Brussels, in their opposition to the Dutch troops, is almost unaccountable. It required cowardice and incapability of the most eminent degree, to ensure a failure of the enterprize. In the first place, they were scarcely opposed at all; they were stopped simply because they dared not proceed, and when they were opposed, it was because they in a manner invited the attack; it was a kind of rising to crush a retreating, trembling monster, that while it grinned and showed its teeth, was evidently bent upon tak

flocked in, and at last a very considerable crowd was collected. Muskets peeped out of every door, lane, and window from behind every lamp-post, balcony, and buttress, till at last they all took courage; a man with a wooden leg trundled a field-piece en avant, the mass shouted, and followed, an explosion took place, and the Dutch army retreated. Night fell, and when morning came, no enemy was to be found. The combatants were out of work; for it is odd enough, as they were almost all laborers and artizans, so did they keep workmanlike hours, going to their meals with wonderful regularity. As soon as the customary hour was ended, and nature satisfied, they returned to their occupation of popping. The greatest slaughter took place among the milk people, who made a point of supplying their customers, as usual; and in order to do this with security, they delivered their milk at a very early hour, before the fighting beBut many, not sufficiently active, or sufficiently early, were caught by the Dutch bullets in the street before all their pratique was supplied.

gan.

We would not wish to ridicule an event which is likely to be productive of great consequences, and which certainly was accompanied by much suffering; but the blame must lie at the door of those who puff the courageous exploits of the brave Bruxellois, and compare the battle to that of Paris.

When the victory was decided nay, indeed, when it appeared probable that it would turn in favor of the people, the authorities, the organs of the revolution, made their appearance. A Provisional Government was immediately patched up, and as soon as the arrival of the news at Paris informed M. de Potter of the state of things, he lost not a moment in returning to the country whence he had been so unjustly banished. He was immediately cooptated by the Provisional Government, since which time he has been

its soul, the spring on which it moved, its oracle, and its guide.

The situation of the Provisional Government was one of extreme difficulty; the interval between the victory of Bruxelles and the assembling of Congress, of extreme danger. All the strong places of the country were filled with Dutch troops; luckily, however, mixed with Belgians. A war was to be carried on without funds, and a starving and excited people to be kept in order without a police, with scarcely a single existing municipal authority. Troops were, however, set on foot, and the war successfully maintained, and the people, with a few exceptions, that of Bruges, for instance, hindered from breaking out into open sacking and plundering. In most towns there was nothing to prevent the numerous poor from rising upon the fewer rich, except their own notions of right and wrong, and also the conciliatory precautions taken by the wealthy, who were well aware of their danger. All this was done amidst the intrigues of the Dutch court, and the apprehensions of foreign intervention. Besides which, the Government found leisure greatly to ameliorate the existing laws, and by several popular and liberal enactments secured the favor of the country. They also organized the assembling of a Congress of Notables, by which the form and principles of the native constitution of the independent state should be decided upon. Up to the very meeting of this assembly, the Government appears to have gone on with unity of purpose, and in harmony of feeling. The course of procedure to be adopted by the Provisional Government, as respected the form of acknowledging the authority of the Congress, became a matter of discussion, and De Potter seems to have been left in a minority of one. The immediate consequence has been his retirement altogether from the management of affairs. What the future consequences of his se

cession may be, it is more difficult to say. De Potter may now be considered the head of the Republican party, and the fact of that act

ive and zealous faction being able to place at their head so distin guished a chief, may very seriously affect the fortunes of Belgium.

MR. T, a young gentleman with a broken limb, which refused to heal long after the fracture, went to consult Mr. Abernethy; and, as usual, was entering into all the details of his complaint, when he was thus stopped almost in limine"Pray, sir, do you come here to talk, or to hear me ! If you want my advice, it is so and so-I wish you good morning."

A scene of greater length, and still greater interest and entertainment, took place between this eminent surgeon and the famous John Philpot Curran. Mr. Curran, it seems, being personally unknown to him, had visited Mr. Abernethy several times, without having had an opportunity of fully explaining (as he thought) the nature of his malady. At last, determined to have a hearing, when interrupted in his story he fixed his dark bright eye on the "doctor," and said"Mr. Abernethy, I have been here on eight different days, and I have paid you eight different guineas; but you have never yet listened to the symptoms of my complaint. I am resolved, sir, not to leave this room till you satisfy me by doing so." Struck by his manner, Mr. Abernethy threw himself back in his chair, and assuming the posture of a most indefatigable listener, exclaimed, in a tone of half surprise, half humor, "Oh, very well, sir, I am ready to hear you out. Go on, give me the whole-your birth, parentage, and education. I wait your pleasure; go on. Upon which, Curran, not a whit diconcerted, gravely began: My name is John Philpot Curran. My parents were poor, but I believe honest people, of the province of Munster, where also I was born, being a 42 ATHENEUM, VOL. 5, 3d series.

native of Newmarket, county of Cork, in the year one thousand seven hundred and fifty. My father being employed to collect the rents of a Protestant gentleman of small fortune, in that neighborhood, obtained my entrance into one of the Protestant Free-schools, where I obtained the first rudiments of my education. I was next enabled to enter Trinity College, Dublin, in the humble sphere of a sizer ”. and so he continued for several minutes, giving his astonished hearer a true, but irresistibly laughable account of his "birth, parentage, and education," as desired, till he came to his illness and sufferings, the detail of which was not again interrupted. It is hardly necessary to add, that Mr. Abernethy's atten tion to his gifted patient was, from that hour to the close of his life, assiduous, unremitting, and devoted.

Mrs. I. once consulted him on a nervous disorder, the minutiae of which appeared to be so fantastical, that Mr. Abernethy interrupted their frivolous detail, by holding out his hand for the fee. A one-pound note and a shilling were placed in it; upon which he returned the latter to his fair patient, with the angry exclamation of, "There, ma'am! go and buy a skipping-rope : that is all you want."

Mr. Abernethy's strong point in prescribing is generally addressed to the relief of the bowels, and to the lowering and regulation of diet and regimen. He is, consequently, much sought in dyspeptic disorders; and, it is stated, often refers to such or such a page in one of his books, where he has already given the remedy. The patients have only to buy the work, where they will find an exact description of their symp